"Apple, the world's most profitable technology company, doesn't design iPhones here. It doesn't run AppleCare customer service from this city. And it doesn't manufacture MacBooks or iPads anywhere nearby. Yet, with a handful of employees in a small office here in Reno, Apple has done something central to its corporate strategy: it has avoided millions of dollars in taxes in California and 20 other states." Sure, this is all legal for companies to do (and Apple obviously isn't alone) but it does show you how much sense of morality companies have. Answer: none. But hey, it's legal, and the law is never wrong, right?

Fine, don't pay tax. While you're at it. Don't use the public roads. Blindfold yourself at night whenever you're near a street lamp. Tell the police to not help you if you're robbed. Dial 911 if you're injured? Forget that. You'll also need to stockpile on candles because electric power lines are government property.

It costs money to keep a country afloat. If you live in a country it's your responsibility to contribute your part to make it so.

Fine, don't pay tax. While you're at it. Don't use the public roads. Blindfold yourself at night whenever you're near a street lamp. Tell the police to not help you if you're robbed. Dial 911 if you're injured? Forget that. You'll also need to stockpile on candles because electric power lines are government property.

It costs money to keep a country afloat. If you live in a country it's your responsibility to contribute your part to make it so.

In the U.S., ALL of that comes from local taxes.

Federal taxes are used for war, largely poorly designed or intended 'studies', placating to lobbyists, oversight departments that perform poorly, interstate highways, the IRS itself, CIA, FBI, DEA, ATF, NSA, DOE, and much much more.

Taxes for medicare & social security are collected "separate" from income taxes, so I didn't include those.

Most of what the federal government does should be left at the federal level, but everything they do costs far far too much. And the DEA should simply be abandoned, the DOE should be destroy and made into a committee of education leaders from each state / represented territory.

The IRS should be destroyed by following the constitution and having the federal government collect its funds from the states, and have those states determine how to get that money from its people.

That is how it is suppose to work. Otherwise, work out a system for a federal sales tax, and abolish the IRS. Problem is, while a sales tax is more efficient (see Texas) and is entirely fair (critical items, like food and water, are not taxed) it is also too difficult to use as a source of corruption by politicians. You can't easily create tax credits to hide giveaways so people buy something from the lobbyist that gave you the most money or the best gifts...

The lower degree of corruption in a sales-tax system is precisely why the government will never do it.

You would still tax business profits & corporate profits - at much lower levels, with very few avenues of escape.

We should be trying to put CPAs and tax companies out of business...(sorry, but that's progress...)

I don't know about your area, but here, the public roads are all f***ed. They're not taken care of properly. They're pothole-ridden. The potholes get "patched", then the patches break down and then need to be patched, then the patches over patches need to be patched. It's a never-ending cycle until the whole damn road is just something you don't want to drive on. The roads get so bad and stay that way for extended periods of time, it's not even funny. The entire damn road needs redone, and just when you might think they're getting serious about doing the right thing, they do little stretches here and there, leaving shittiness in between. It's been horrible for years before they finally got off their asses and started spending money on "real" road repairs, and there are are still dozens of bad roads.

The government is no good at spending our tax dollars where it should be. Instead, they just fork over enormous amounts of money in their ridiculous "war on drugs" and "war on terrorism" and other stupid shit like recycling the most pointless things (paper, plastic, etc.). And before you bitch, "but recycling is good!" I do recycle things that are worthwhile: metals, especially aluminum (which I get a lot of in the form of cans). Go to YouTube and look up "penn and teller bullshit recycling" and watch all three parts of the 30-minute episode before you go on your "going green" bullshit.

But as someone pointed out above, the roads are taken care of by the local governments, not the federal. So basically, local or federal, it doesn't matter which part of the government it is... they all burn tax money on ridiculous shit. City, state, federal--you name it.